Taking a Bath

A dog barked in the distance, and two-year old Lisa Olson plunged her six-inch Safari Tanya doll to the murky depths of the empty bathtub in which she sat. The invisible water splashed about her creamy plastic flesh in a futile attempt at washing clean the mucky crud left over from her previous flight out of the second story window of the Olson home.

Lisa had found it eerily pleasurable to witness her doll’s suicide leap and to watch as she smashed into the sizzling concrete driveway far, far below. She recalled in her mind how Safari Tanya had leapt headfirst through the closed window of the master bedroom, shattering the glass into hundreds of crystal clear shards, each of which caught a perverted reflection of the two-year old standing at the window sill. The glass slices seemed to spin in place as the six-inch doll sailed gracefully into the air then began her silent descent. A millionth of a second before hundreds of pieces of glass rained down after her, Safari Tanya should have shattered herself into a million tiny pieces. However, she managed to emerge unscathed with the sole exception of a slash across her left breast.

In a way, this left Lisa Olson disappointed. But it was not a problem, she thought as she soaked Safari Tanya in the empty tub. She would simply give her doll a nice bath... and try again tomorrow. And if the little bitch still refused to die, then there would always be another opportunity. There were always other opportunities. That was the way of the world.

Lisa took the sponge gingerly in her hand and began scrubbing Safari Tanya’s face. You are so beautiful, she thought. Why must you have such tendencies? The doll stared at Lisa, and Lisa stared back.

The door to the bathroom swung open to reveal Rebecca Olson, Lisa’s loving and caring mother, standing in the threshold.

“What are you up to?” asked Rebecca with a cheery smile on her face.

“I’n juss givin Taya a baff.” replied Lisa, returning the cheery smile.

Rebecca chuckled inwardly at the sight of her little girl trying to wash her doll with no water.

“Does Tanya like her haircut?” asked Rebecca, somehow managing to widen her smile.

Lisa looked down at Safari Tanya’s skuzzed-up scalp, which contained no hair longer than a millimeter and looked as though it had been caught in a weed whacker gone horribly awry. Lisa then looked up with a smile which somehow dwarfed her mother’s and said, “Taya LUZ er aircut!”

Rebecca’s face began to hurt intensely, yet she kept the smile up and asked, “Is

Tanya being a good girl?”

“Oh, yes! Yes yes yes! Taya’s a unbelievably good gul!”

“Well that’s nice,” replied Rebecca, straining to keep smiling, “because we wouldn’t want to have to severe one of her pretty little limbs, now would we?”

“No, mum!” Lisa shook her head happily.

Rebecca almost shouted out as she smiled wider and said, “Now, Lisa, are YOU being a good gir-”

From somewhere in the distance there resounded a ringing.

“Just a second, sweetie. Mummy’s gotta go get the pretty little phone, okay?”

“Okay then...” Rebecca shut the door and the hallway outside the bathroom was flooded in darkness. She fell to the floor and cradled her cheeks in agony. The phone rang a second time.

Rebecca raced down the stairs and grasped the telephone in her sweaty palm. She shoved the receiver into her ear and said calmly, “Hello?”

The person on the other end of the line was Zachary Franklin, an auto mechanic who lived in Detroit. Zack and Rebecca had met only once prior to this telephone conversation.

As the conversation progressed, Rebecca found herself staring out the window, mesmerized by the beauty of the pasty yellow sky.

“Goodbye,” she finally said after four minutes and fifty-seven seconds of nonsense. She placed the receiver back on the hook, which was situated rather conveniently on the wall. The receiver made a soft click as it touched the hook.

It was night, and the two goldfish stapled together bubbled pleasantly within the confines of their aquatic home, a hypnotizing tank which sat on the wooden floor, supporting the television set which in turn sat upon it.

Rebecca climbed the stairs alone in the darkness, yet was not frightened, for the light from within the bathroom slashed through the sides and bottom of the door, slicing through the blackness like a gleaming scimitar through thin air, and giving Rebecca the comfort of knowing that, behind that door, sitting inside the empty bathtub, was her daughter.

As Rebecca approached the illuminated doorway, a sudden, inexplicable sense of pure and untainted dread came over her. It began gnawing at her, eating away at her mind until she had no choice but to burst open the bathroom door and scream at what she saw.

Lying down in the empty bathtub was Lisa, her mouth suctioned onto the floor of the tub as though she were a leech. Rebecca’s mouth hurt as it began twitching between a scream and a grin.

Lisa lay completely on her chest. An almost unnoticeable river of reddish water was trickling from the sides of her lips.

Safari Tanya was still in Lisa’s right hand.

Rebecca could make no sound. The house was silent.

Suddenly, with an intense rush, Rebecca ran to the tub and tore Lisa from inside the dry basin.

“Lisa! LISA! LISA!!!” Rebecca howled. The night gave no response save the chilling wail of sirens and a lone saxophone somewhere in the distance.

When the deep abyss-colored ambulance did arrive, there was nothing that could be done.

One of the two fish that were stapled together had died. The other was still alive.

Safari Tanya was placed gently into an olive-colored shoebox and buried beneath a sycamore in the backyard. No one was quite sure whether she was dead or alive.

When they found Rebecca, she was in shock. The night was already deep into its maddening prowl, so the authorities decided to keep her under armed guard at the building fifteen miles away.

Lisa was in Rebecca’s arms when they found her. Upon attempting to discern the cause of death, half a gallon of tap water was pumped from her lungs.

She had drowned.